Today being our 6th day at sea, we have had a bit of a light to medium chop all night long – more side to side rocking action than previously going “over” the waves. I would say we are still in about 8-10 foot swells at sea, with whitecaps showing today. It is a little hard to judge from 5+ decks up, however the captain yesterday said to expect 2-3 metre seas and that is about the equivalent. The other interesting thing that the Captain has indicated is the Beaufort scale – which I am mentioning more for the nautical people following (read my dad) that anyone else. I have not heard this mentioned on previous cruises so I looked it up!
According to Wikipedia – the Beaufort Scale is “an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land. Its full name is the “Beaufort wind force scale”. It was devised in 1805 by Francis Beaufort, a hydrographer, in the Royal Navy. It was officially adopted by the Royal Navy and later spread internationally.” It goes on to say “The initial scale of 13 classes (zero to 12) did not reference wind speed numbers, but related qualitative wind conditions to effects on the sails of a frigate, then the main ship of the Royal Navy, from “just sufficient to give steerage” to “that which no canvas sails could withstand. The scale was made a standard for ship’s log entries on Royal Navy vessels in the late 1830s and, in 1853, the Beaufort scale was accepted.”
Engineer section: Wind speed on the modern Beaufort scale is based on the empirical relationship of:
v = 1.625 B3/2 knots (=138B3
Now for all your land lubbers like me, that in English means the following for sea vs. land:
| Beauf-ort Scale | Descrip-tion | Wave Height | Sea Conditions | Land Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Calm | 0 ft, 0 m | Sea like a mirror | Smoke rises vertically |
| 1 | Light Air | 0–1 ft, 0–0.3 m | Ripples with appearance of scales are formed, without foam crests | Direction shown by smoke drift but not by wind vanes |
| 2 | Light Breeze | 1–2 ft, 0.3–0.6 m | Small wavelets still short but more pronounced; crests have a glassy appearance but do not break | Wind felt on face; wind vane moved by wind |
| 3 | Gentle Breeze | 2–4 ft, 0.6–1.2 m | Large wavelets; crests begin to break; foam of glassy appearance; perhaps scattered white horses | Leaves and small twigs in motion; light flags extended |
| 4 | Moderate Breeze | 3.5–6 ft, 1–2 m | Small waves becoming longer; fairly frequent white horses | Raises dust and loose paper; small branches moved |
| 5 | Fresh Breeze | 6–10 ft, 2–3 m | Moderate waves taking a more pronounced long form; many white horses are formed; chance of some spray | Small trees in leaf begin to sway; crested wavelets form on inland waters |
| 6 | Strong Breeze | 9–13 ft, 3–4 m | Large waves begin to form; the white foam crests are more extensive everywhere; probably some spray | Large branches in motion; umbrellas used with difficulty |
| 7 | Moderate gale, near gale | 13–19 ft, 4–5.5 m | Sea heaps up and white foam from breaking waves begins to be blown in streaks along the direction of the wind | Whole trees in motion; felt when walking against the wind |
| 8 | Gale, fresh gale | 18–25 ft, 5.5–7.5 m | Moderately high waves of greater length; edges of crests break into spindrift; foam is blown in well-marked streaks along the direction of the wind | Twigs break off trees; generally impedes progress |
| 9 | Strong/severe gale | 23–32 ft, 7–10 m | High waves; dense streaks of foam along the direction of the wind; sea begins to roll; spray affects visibility | Slight structural damage (chimney pots and slate removed) |
| 10 | Storm/whole gale | 29–41 ft, 9–12.5 m | Very high waves with long overhanging crests; foam blown along the direction of the wind; the surface of the sea a white appearance; rolling sea becomes heavy; visibility affected | Seldom experienced inland; trees uprooted; considerable structural damage |
| 11 | Violent storm | 37–52 ft, 11.5–16 m | Exceptionally high waves; small- and medium-sized ships might be for a long time lost to view behind the waves; sea is covered with long white patches of foam; visibility affected | Very rarely experienced; accompanied by widespread damage |
| 12 | Hurricane Force | ≥ 46 ft, ≥ 14 m | The air is filled with foam and spray; sea is completely white with driving spray; visibility very seriously affected | Devastation |
A couple of things to note – “white horses” are “a nautical term for whitecaps or breaking wave crests that form on the surface of the water in windy conditions. They get their name because the white, foamy crests can resemble the mane of a horse, and the sound of crashing waves can sound like hooves.”
Next, the Beaufort Scale in 1946, was extended to 13-17, however it is not approved by the World Meteorological Organization. These forces of 13 to 17 were intended to apply only to special cases, such as tropical cyclones which are used now in Taiwan, mainland China and Vietnam areas which are often affected by typhoons.
Now onto more happening things on the ship! Yes, another day of artwork for me! Today I planned to do watercolour, calligraphy, doodling, sign up for the oil painting class tomorrow (I have to pay for that class) and “adult” colouring! What fun I had doing all these things and the people that I met were also so fascinating! In my doodling and calligraphy class, I sat next to two ladies who I had already shared the space with previously. One, Anne is VERY organized and has her own mechanical pencil, colouring pencils which are double ended – different colours on each end which are great for traveling, and black felt pens. I have a pencil and black pen with me but did not bring my colouring pencils! I do have my Mandela book with me though so that is what I primarily focused on in the adult colouring class. Laura next to me is a beautiful artist and drew an awesome butterfly from the class a few days prior and she was still finishing it with the pens and pencils available. So we coloured and chatted a bit and it was fun!
I then met Andrew after his 3 mile/5 kilometre walk around the now warmer deck, for lunch. Well, lunch was a let down after that phenomenal dinner last night! I had ordered a watermelon caprese salad which was nice but TINY and it was kind of weird having watermelon chunks with mozzarella and balsamic vinegar! I much prefer tomatoes. However Andrew really liked the salad so each to their own tastes! The menu was light for gluten free options for lunch so I had ordered baguette slices and the spinach artichoke dip with Parmesan cheese. The nice cheese topping on the dip was good on the piece of bread that I received (not the baguette slices) however the dip was something less desirable. I remember ordering this on the Nieuw Statendam and it being excellent! I ended up going to the Lido deck later in the afternoon and getting a bagel and some cheese chunks for a snack instead, which is a great segway into my next topic – gluten free food on board!
I by now had realized that the muffins I had ordered at breakfast, the bread and cookies I was being served in the dining room and the bagel that I had for lunch the previous day were not from the supplier that Holland America used to purchase from which was Kinnickinnik Foods out of Edmonton, AB. They were just different in taste and size. As I know they stock gluten free food items on the Lido Deck too, which is where I will dine in a pinch, I decided to investigate and see what brands were on board! When we first got onto the ship, the gluten free supplies had not made it to the Lido deck yet as the Executive Sous Chef that I talked to on the Lido deck told me that they had taken on a large order of gluten free food provisions for the journey and the various food outlets would be stocked overnight. I was quite surprised to see a new brand that I had not seen previously in my 45 years of living with Celiac Disease – it is called Schnitzer and it is out of Europe. They have bagels, hot dog buns, hamburger buns, foccacia, pannini and other types of bread like baguettes. Also on board is a Canadian company named Northern Bakehouse, whose bread I actually do not like – which makes sense now that the brown bread I have been served – it is from them. I however DO like the Northern Bakehouse Cinnamon Raisin bread – so if they have that I will have to give it a try! I also saw Barilla pasta which is one of the ones we use at home. The only thing that the Lido was out of stock on were the cookies – so that I am still to find out what types they have (and brands) other than chocolate chip!
Now onto more exciting things! First, as it is Friday, at 2pm I joined my weekly Zoom session where we discuss a short story that everyone has read this past week. This week the story was called “The Boat” and it was written about a family in Eastern Canada and fishing. It was kind of ironic, as I am on a type of boat myself, however as my father will correct me, it is a SHIP! It really is amazing, here we are over half way down the Pacific to Hawaii, and I could almost maintain a zoom session (I did break up a couple of times I was told) while at sea. Technology is advancing fast!
I then went to the 4pm water colour class, where I met another fascinating lady who lives in Marysville, Washington – when I asked her where she was from she said “oh north of Seattle – you would not know where”. I said try me – I can almost drive from Vancouver, BC to Bellevue, Washington with blindfolds on as I know the route so well and that is when she told me Marysville! The Ferguson’s used to stop at a pie place there and I often get a Coke Zero at the McDonalds and fill up at the Chevron there if driving back at night as I like that gas station better as it is very well lit.
She then told me that she was a former math teacher and she is retired now, and how during COVID her friend invited her to go to a water colour class at the local seniors centre. She thought a math teachers does not do art work! However then she told me about the right/left brain theory (which I already knew) and how the one side of the brain that does numbers gets to relax and the creative side gets to take over and how she now LOVES watercolour painting and has been doing it for 3 years now. While we were painting our mushrooms (Dad, keep your puns to yourself please) we kept chatting and she said her husband is in the military and after their kids were born she went back to school and got a degree in computer engineering. That fascinated me so I told her that I had worked as an Income Auditor and then switched to become a Software Product Manager myself, on the technical side and worked a lot with programmers and testers on the software that a private company made. At that time she then told me she both worked on and was the manager of quality assurance for the F-14 figher jets and the software changes that needed to be made to upgrade and be tested. This fairly quiet lady is quite a smart cookie! I was quite surprised! We then chatted about planes, how I had watched Top Gun and Top Gun Mavrick and my love of flying along with my dad’s interest too. She was very pleased to see a female so interested in the airline industry as she said when she began working for the government, there were not a lot of females in the computer science field. It was a very interesting hour that I spent with her!
Then she left and Adult Colouring began, which I was prepared for to complete what I had started earlier in the day. I was sitting by myself at the table and I could hear two ladies behind me giggling and talking about their mushroom art and how psychedelic they were. So I could not resist and turned around and said “if you paint too many more you will not have mush room for any more on the paper”. They laughed! Better than I get at home from Andrew or my dad! One of them was from the East Coast of the USA and the other from the Netherlands. I would estimate they were in their 30’s. They are on this cruise with a group named the Digital Nomads, which were a bit controversial prior to us getting onto this ship.
As you know I belong to an online community called Cruise Critics and you can belong to a chat session for the specific sailing of the cruise you will be on. I was on the Noordam sailing to Sydney for about 9 months prior to the cruise. When I joined, there was a lot of talk about the Digital Nomads group and how a sailing that went from Vancouver to Japan was very uncomfortable for the other guests on the ship as the Digital Nomads got into the party spirit a bit too much. People on the Cruise Critic message board decided to cancel and things like that as they did not want their “dream” vacation ruined by some “kids”. Granted, Holland America’s target audience are seniors, a bit older than Andrew and I, however the company does have a right to be open to any market segment that wants to travel with them and build loyalty going forward! I personally think this is a great relationship between the two segments of communities – they really do not get into each others way. The Digital Nomads are definitely tech heavy on the ship where the senior cruises are more light users such as email like Andrew.
The ladies who sat behind me were very polite and obviously had overheard the conversation that I had with my prior table made with regards to technology and computer science. The lady from the East Coast left, however the one from the Netherlands stayed to complete her mushroom painting. She and I chatted off and on and she has been on several of these Digital Nomad cruises now and really enjoys the networking with others, some of the daily sessions they have and most of all meeting people from around the world. She has an online niche travel business in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia where she is going after this cruise along with she motivates women and empowers them daily to take care of themselves better through an online website. It is in a different language, so I did not bother to ask her further about it.
That again, got me thinking just how this world has changed over the years from the lady who sat next to me, who was first educated in math, who went on to getting a degree in Computer Science using main frame computers and programmed and ensured that F-14’s could fly safely. Then desktop computers were invented, laptops, modems, the internet and the world opened up for business! Now one, like the Digital Nomads, can go anywhere and do anything as long as it is online, and work their own hours and not be tied down to a desk each day. Quite a different live, that in part, COVID helped launch into this paradigm.
During the doodling class, the ship had moved the sunset Hawaiian music playing inside from the Lido Deck to the Crowsnest which is just behind were the art studio is. Apparently people were having problems hearing on the Lido Deck. I went by and took some pictures of the hula dancers (mum and daughter) and the husband/father playing the ukulele behind them.
Okay, enough of me and my pondering while at sea! We have dinner to prepare for! Tonight we are going to a specialty dinner called the Crab Boil which is being held on the Lido Deck (Deck 9) of the Noordam. It is self explanatory – I took a picture of the tent card on the table and that is what we had to eat – the amusing part is it was a set dinner and everything for me was made gluten free – identical almost, but gluten free! So no salad instead of the clam chowder or fruit instead of the berry crisp a la mode! Quite spectacular!
Now we were very full after that meal! We then sauntered (as well as you can when the sea is at 9 – 10 feet) or Beaufort 5, back to our room to relax for the balance of the evening! Andrew was happy with all the sports scores for the evening too! Tomorrow is our last day at sea prior to seeing land again – Honolulu for two days!
Chat soon!